Yoon Impeachment and Political Accountability: Lessons from South Korea

Members of Parliament and Aides Preventing the Military Attack. Image Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/2024_South_Korean_martial_law_voiceofseoullive07.png

At a time when election-denying treasonous (Reich, 2023) felons ( POLITICO Staff, 2024)  are re-elected in a country which proclaims to be the guiding light of all democracies, and when political systems around the world are being broken down by political strife,[1] the recent failed attempt by the South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol to impose martial law and his consequential impeachment (A.P., 2024) serves as an example of how a hard-fought democracy should be defended (Huq, 2024).

South Korea in its early days suffered 16 declarations of martial law. Many of its citizens are old enough to remember the terrors of tyranny (Park, 2024). While restoring civil liberties, the 1987 Constitution included various safeguards such as Article 77 which greatly limit the grounds and powers of Martial Law ensuring Political and Civil Liberties while making the declaration subject to a decision passed by a simple majority of the National Assembly (박, 2024).

Far from the Bipartisan support which led to the formation of the Constitution, South Korea is incredibly polarized, (Ronkin, n.d.) much like the rest of the world (Pandian, 2022)( Carothers, 2019). Mired with scandals, prosecution and inability to pass legislation, Yoon essentially became a lame-duck president and in his last vestiges of power (Park, 2024) at 10:25 pm on 03.12.2024 he announced Martial Law citing the North Korean Crisis (Trash Balloons released in May) and the Legislative Deadlock which do not amount to the grounds of “military necessity or maintaining the public safety in time of war, armed conflict or similar national emergency.” His execution was also unconstitutional as he ordered a raid on the National Election Commission (Ji-hye, 2024) and ordered the army to prevent the MPs from voting and to make political arrests ( Ng, 2024).

However, the Congressional aides and staff built barricades of furniture, humans and scorn preventing the army from coming inside while allowing the MPs. In less than 3 hours, 190 members mobilized by literally jumping over fences and unanimously voted to lift the Martial Law. This resulted in Yoon lifting the martial law within 6 hours of its implementation.

This incredible speed of public mobilizing can be attributed to various factors. The first being that South Korea has near-universal digital connectivity (Dixon, 2024) with 90% of people using Social Media Apps such as KakaoTalk (Jobst, 2024). The aides and the MPs continuously recorded or livestreamed the situation which protected them as the military did not raise arms and some in fact walked away (Kim, 2024). The weak sentiment of the military can be attributed to them being informed mere hours before to be “on standby.” Coupled with Article 31 which guarantees the Right to Equitable Education, the proliferation of disinformation in the country was relatively less while a strong sense of civic duty was observed among South Koreans, leading to the aforementioned (Draudt-Vjaures, 2024).

Given that the country suffered despotism till 1987, which was only brought down by the combined efforts of labour unions, farmers, students and intellectuals. Their pre-existing networks of contention (social and organizational connections which facilitate collective action) (Hadden, 2015; Diani, 2009; Tilly, 2015) by sharing of resources, information and organizational capacity even in high-risk contexts, mobilized, in the middle of the night, thousands of people to protest. Particularly the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions which represents 1.2 million workers across key industries including public services such as healthcare and transportation, announced a general strike in violation of the Martial Law Decree, encouraging similar actions by Civil Societies and eroding the support from businesses and the general public even further (Hyun-Soo, 2024).

With great antipathy towards corruption and abuse of power, impeachment and prosecution of top public officials, was anyway quite common. For example, in 2016, the former president Park Geun-hue was impeached (Sang-hun, 2016). Similarly, Roh Moo-hyun was impeached as President in 2004 (A.P. 2024). Though the impeachment of Yoon’s top officials was one of the motivations behind imposing Martial Law, frequent impeachments in South Korea signify the inherent distrust of a duly informed and educated public and their empowerment to respond accordingly to threats. While millions came to the streets to peacefully protest in Candle-Marches against Park Geun-hue leading to his impeachment after a month; the response to Yoon was swift and decisive, with millions on the streets protesting to the sound of K-Pop music such that the first impeachment motion was tabled mere hours after the decree and the second passed in merely 10 days.

Interesting as the Constitution of South Korea may be, similar safeguards, if not as efficacious, exist throughout the world. What truly makes this impeachment a momentous occasion for all democracies is the fact that South Korea too is incredibly polarized yet with simple solutions and the power of an informed and educated public who don’t just follow a herd mentality, the country was able to thwart the biggest threat to its democracy, (H.R.W., 2024) at a time when other countries keep collapsing. Embodying the spirit of the Social Contract Theory and of a democracy, it is also a wake-up call to other governments of the need for responsiveness and accountability.  

References

1.     A.P. (2024, December 16). South Korean investigators push to summon impeached president Yoon, as Court set determine his fate. The Hindu. https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/south-korean-investigators-push-to-summon-impeached-president-yoon-as-court-set-determine-his-fate/article68990634.ece

2.     Carothers, T. (2019, October). How to understand the global spread of political polarization. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. https://carnegieendowment.org/posts/2019/10/how-to-understand-the-global-spread-of-political-polarization?lang=en

3.     Darcie Draudt-Vjaures. (n.d.). How South Korea’s democracy saved itself. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. https://carnegieendowment.org/emissary/2024/12/south-korea-democracy-yoon-protests?lang=en

4.     Diani, M., & McAdam, D. (2009). Social Movements and networks: Relational Approaches to Collective Action. Oxford University Press.

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6.     Guardian News and Media. (2022, January 16). Look around you. the way we live explains why we are increasingly polarized. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/global/2022/jan/16/look-around-you-why-increasingly-polarized

7.     Hadden, J. (2015). Networks in contention: The divisive politics of climate change. Cambridge University Press.

8.     Huq, A. (2024, December 12). South Korea’s impeachment battle is democracy in action: By Aziz Huq. Project Syndicate. https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/south-korea-yoon-impeachment-how-democracy-protects-itself-by-aziz-huq-2024-12

9.     Hyun-soo, K. (2024, December 4). Biggest umbrella labor group to go on indefinite strike until Yoon Steps Down. Yonhap News Agency. https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20241204006100315

10.  Ji-hye, S. (2024, December 6). Why did martial law troops go to National Election Commission?. The Korea Herald. https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20241206050095

11.  Jobst, N. (2024, August 23). KakaoTalk: Monthly active users 2024. Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/746249/south-korea-kakaotalk-monthly-active-users/

12.  Kim, Arin (4 December 2024). Shattered windows, couch barricades: Martial law troops break into National Assembly. The Korea Herald. Retrieved 4 December 2024.

13.  Ng, K. (2024, December 6). President Yoon’s arrest list included own party leader. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy8y7ggm89lo

14.  Park, S. Nathan (4 December 2024). South Koreans know what dictatorship looks like . Foreign Policy. Archived from the original on 5 December 2024. But still, the idea that Yoon might attempt martial law and a self-coup—where an existing leader seizesdictatorial power—seemed to be too outlandish.(https://for eignpolicy.com/2024/12/04/martial-law-south-korea-yoon-dictatorship-self-coup/)

15.  A.P. (2024, December 14). South Korea’s parliament votes to impeach president Yoon Suk yeol over his martial law order. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2024/12/14/g-s1-38287/south-korean-president-yoon-second-impeachment-vote

16.  Reich, R. (2023, April 24). Trump committed treason and will try again. he must be barred from running | Robert Reich. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/apr/24/trump-treason-constitution-election-republicans-robert-reich

17.  Ronkin, N. (n.d.). “Korea is facing a crisis in political leadership”: Stanford sociologist. FSI. https://aparc.fsi.stanford.edu/news/korea-facing-crisis-political-leadership-stanford-sociologist-gi-wook-shin-unpacks-korean

18.  Sang-hun, C. (2016, December 8). Claims against South Korean president: Extortion, abuse of power and bribery. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/08/world/asia/south-korea-park-geun-hye-accusations-impeachment.html

19.  South Korea: President impeached for abuse of power. Human Rights Watch. (2024, December 14). https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/12/14/south-korea-president-impeached-abuse-power

20.  Tilly, C., & Tarrow, S. G. (2015). Contentious politics. Oxford University Press.

21.  Tracking the trump criminal cases: Latest on legal charges and key players. POLITICO. (n.d.). https://www.politico.com/interactives/2023/trump-criminal-investigations-cases-tracker-list/#hush-money

22.  Wikimedia Foundation. (2024, December 15). 2024 South Korean martial law crisis. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_South_Korean_martial_law#:~:text=This%20was%20the%20first%20time,of%20the%20republic%20in%201948.

[1] For Example: No government is able to be formed in France, which may lead to Macron’s Impeachment; A rebellion by Islamic Militant Groups has just overthrown an elected government in Syria; Wars in Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Ukraine, and Yemen.

Kanha Shrivastava is a student at UPES, Dehradun.

{The opinions expressed herein are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University.}